“You’re not plannin’ on breakin’ and enterin’, are you?” Absalom walked at my side, eyeing the darkened office. There were a couple security lights shining on the used car lot, one near the office door, and another aimed at the double doors that led into a side garage. There was a spotlight high up on the pole to illuminate the mechanical dog. He was doing his job, still waving. The blue neon light in the office window was on, too. Other than that, the place was as dark and as quiet as I’d hoped it would be. “You’re gonna get caught,” Absalom warned. “You’re gonna get in trouble. You are not the kind of woman who will do well in jail, I’ll tell you that. You’re gonna-”
“Trust me, I’m not even thinking about going inside the office.” I gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder at the same time I craned my neck to see to the top of the pole and the laughing, waving dog. “All I want to do is get a closer look.”
“At that?” Except for a cat mewling nearby, it was pretty quiet. Which is why I heard Delmar gulp. “It’s awfully high up.”
By this time we were standing at the bottom of the pole. I glanced up at the metal handholds that started four feet above my head, then down at the sneakers I’d been sensible enough to wear, then around at my team. “If one of you could give me a boost…”
“Up there?”
Since the question burst out of Absalom and Reggie at the same time, I wasn’t sure which of them to answer. “It’s the only way I’m going to be able to check out my theory. Dale Morgan said that Bad Dog said he had proof that he killed Vera. Well, Morgan didn’t exactly say it. I mean, he didn’t want to come right out and say it. But he sort of said it. He said that Raphael said that Bad Dog was sitting on the evidence and laughing his ass off.”
Reggie’s brow creased. The pit bull tattoo frowned. He crossed his arms over his chest. “If you think there’s evidence, then you should tell the cops and have them come look for it.”
“And they’d listen, right?” Nobody answered, but just in case any one of them was formulating a comeback, I supplied my logic. “Dale Morgan is never going to come out and admit what he told me about Bad Dog. He’s too scared, and I don’t blame him. Apparently, Bad Dog’s got a network that extends into prisons, and if word gets out that Morgan led the cops to this evidence, he’s dead meat. That means the cops won’t hear it from Morgan. And they’re not going to hear about Morgan from me. I’m already responsible for what happened to Sammi. I’m not going to let the same thing happen to Morgan. Even if he is smarmy.”
The Big Car Nation sign in the office window washed an icy blue color over Absalom’s face. “You can’t climb up there.”
“You’ll kill yourself,” Delmar chimed in.
It was, of course, a scenario I’d already considered, and rather than think about it again and chicken out the way I’d been tempted to chicken out ever since I came up with this plan, I closed in on the pole. “Come on, somebody help me out here. I don’t want to have to climb on the roof of a car to reach the bottom rung, but I’ll do it if I need to.”
With the back of one hand, Absalom pushed me out of the way. “I’ll do it,” he said.
“You’re too big to reach around the mechanical dog and see what’s inside that car.”
“Then I’ll do it.” Delmar stepped forward.
“You don’t need another ding on your record if you get caught. None of you do.” I rubbed my hands together like I couldn’t wait to get started. It was partly for show, partly because I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t going to fall and end up dead on the hood of the ’98 Accord parked nearby. “All I’m going to do is climb up, take a look inside the car, and see if the mechanical Bad Dog is sitting on anything. Nobody’s going to see me. Nobody’s going to notice a thing. At least not if you all clear out and stop standing around like you’re casing the place. I brought reinforcements.” I pulled the voodoo doll Absalom had given me out of my pocket just to show I meant it. Before my courage faded, I had to move, and I had to move fast. I stepped closer to the pole. “Help me up, will you?”
They weren’t happy about it, but they gave me the boost I needed, and before I could talk myself out of it, I had one foot on the lowest metal rung and my hands clasped around another rung two feet above my head. I steadied myself. I swore I wasn’t going to look down. I took a deep breath, and I started to climb.
Really, the pole wasn’t all that high. At least that’s what I told myself. Twenty feet is what, maybe as high as the top of a house? It felt like I was climbing to the moon.
One hand over the other, one foot carefully planted before I dared to lift the other, I made my way toward the dog sitting in the car at the top of the pole. Big points for me, I froze only once, and that was only because a car cruised by. It didn’t slow down, and that meant the driver hadn’t seen me. Really, I wasn’t all that surprised. Who in their right mind expects to see a woman climbing a pole in the middle of the night? Who would even bother to look? With that car gone, everything below me was quiet. I hoped my team had listened and hightailed it around the corner, but I didn’t have the nerve to look. Instead, I continued my ascent.
I’d like to think I made it to the top in record time, but truth be told, it took longer than it should have. Once my nose was on the same level as the handle on the door of the car and that mechanical dog arm was waving right over my head, I breathed a sigh of relief. A couple more cautious steps and I was grasping the window frame of the car. From the ground, I hadn’t realized how big the mechanical dog was; I needed to be careful, or his waving arm would clunk me. I also needed to stay out of the glow of the spotlight that was trained on the dog. I lifted one foot off the metal rung where it was perched and pivoted sideways. Hanging on with one hand, I peered into the car.
The mechanical dog was no more than the head and arm that stuck out the window. He was built on a wooden frame; his motor whirred from the floor on the passenger side of the car. Technically, he didn’t have an ass, but that didn’t stop me from looking on the driver’s seat, anyway. That spotlight outside illuminated the dog, but the interior of the car was dark.
I inched closer. The wooden frame the dog was set on had a heavy, solid bottom. If I could reach under it…
I stretched, but the way I was standing, my reach wasn’t long enough. I kept my place, watching the mechanical arm swing back and forth and timing my next move. When the dog’s arm was farthest from its body, I swiveled, grabbed the frame of the car, and squeezed myself into the front seat.
I guess my timing was perfect.
No sooner was I sitting next to the dog, and cursing because of the scrapes I’d gotten as I squashed myself flat to get past his wooden frame, than every light in the car lot came on.
“This has nothing to do with you, Pepper. It can’t.”
I consoled myself with these brave words, but at the same time, I hit the floor and stayed there.
“There’s no way anybody knows you’re up here. There’s no chance anybody would even think to look. Nobody would be crazy enough to climb that pole and end up in this car with this dog.”
Nobody but me.
And it would be a shame to waste all that crazy effort.
I bent my head, listening for sounds from down in the car lot, and when I didn’t hear a thing, I got to work, feeling my way through the dark to the wooden platform that supported the dog. I slid my hand under it.
“Sitting on evidence,” I reminded myself. “He said Bad Dog was sitting on the evidence.”
But the only evidence I felt was evidence that the mechanical Bad Dog had been there long enough for the seats in the car to get damp and moldy. I grumbled, wiped my hand on my jeans, and tried again. This time, I poked my hand into the elbow where the bench met the back of the seat-and touched something that crinkled.
Encouraged, I reached in a little farther. With my index finger, I could just feel the corner of what felt like an envelope. I stretched, but I couldn’t quite grasp it. Not without twisting myself into a pretzel between Bad Dog and his motor.
I pulled out my hand, squirmed around so that I was kneeling squarely between the motor and the dog, and tried again.
Again, I felt the envelope, but I couldn’t grab it.
I stretched just a little more, and when that didn’t work, I raised up from my knees, extended my right leg, and… kicked the motor.
It stopped dead.
